iRaq

OK, I think it’s time that I really take a look at the controversial war that is still raging in iRaq (Under New Management). Yes, I still support what we went in there to do. That’s not to say I think Baghdad is the garden spot of the Middle East. I’d like to take a look at this war from its beginning to the present and see if I can make some sense out of the chaos.

We were totally kicking ass in Afghanistan, showing the terrorists what it feels like to get Uncle Sam’s boot buried squarely in the rear. We were working the U.N to try and get Saddam to show us his weapons, weapons that we knew he had (because we sold them to him for the Iran/iRaq war). The U.N. told him that they needed to see certain sites or else there would be serious consequences. Saddam said, “Sure!” The U.N sent in inspectors and Saddam limited their access. The U.N went to him again and said, “Let us in to those places, or else!” Saddam said, “Um, yeah… I’m going to have to ask you to leave. And take those inspectors with you!” The U.N gave him one last chance (three last chances) and nothing…

President Bush decided (remember, he’s the decider – Ha!) that enough was enough and went to Congress. In response (along with other quotes that can be found in my Jan. 23rd post) congress voted to attack iRaq.

Sen. Reid (current presidential candidate): “We stopped the fighting [in 1991] based on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict.” (Sen. Harry Reid, Congressional Record, 10/9/02, p. S10145)

I think that we were morally and legally justified to take action, even if the U.N wasn’t. We knew how dangerous that stuff we sold him was, or could be in the hands of a terrorist. So off we go on a another ass kicking spree, overtaking Baghdad in about 3 weeks! This was a war that we knew how to fight… against uniformed soldiers and fixed positions. It’s what our military was built to crush, and crush we did.

Then we captured Saddam and removed the former dictatorship (considered at the time to be the worst human rights violator in the world by U.N. Human Rights groups). We completed what we thought would be the difficult part. Now it was only a matter of keeping the peace and rebuilding.

When President Bush declared an end to “major combat missions” over there with his “Mission Accomplished” statement, I didn’t foresee the current state of iRaq. Little did I realize that a people who were put down for so long would rail against freedom. I learned that while Saddam was brutal (gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait), he was at least secular. I didn’t think that the real oppressors of freedom would be the powerful Muslim clerics. There is no more powerful force that could drive someone to war/jihad than the voice of God/Allah telling you to do it.

Now, where do we go from here? Right now, the Democrats are trying to rewrite history by rescinding the authorization that they voted for and removing the troop’s funding. All that I know is that it’s better to try to solve a problem rather than run away from it.